


Breathe For Me

by LokianaWinchester



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Elton John being the absolute best, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Harry Hart, Pining, Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 11:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14933648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokianaWinchester/pseuds/LokianaWinchester
Summary: I rewatched Kingsman: The Golden Circle and went looking for a prompt to fill immediately after. I found “Breathe for me, darling. You have to breathe to live.” and it ended up being an AU where Eggsy gets shot in the final fight against Whiskey.





	Breathe For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, please forgive mistakes.

“Breathe for me, darling. You have to breathe to live.” Harry was panting out. They defeated everybody, the silence around them was deafening, so much death. Panic rose in his mind and so did the butterflies, but he could not take his eyes off Eggsy, who was slumped against the counter.

“Breathe.”

Eggsy did. His breaths came in shallow huffs and Harry feared the next one could be the last, but Eggsy fought on. One of Whiskey’s bullets had hit him and Eggsy still fought on. Harry was so proud of him.

But now he was dying, and Harry realised a lot of things.

He realised that Whiskey might have been right. He was not okay; his emergency protocol seemed to be shut down, he could not move, could not act. Harry could only talk to Eggsy whose eyes were slowly glazing over. Looking at them Harry realised another thing. Those eyes, the green shade of them, they seemed to stare in Harry’s soul even as the life was literally draining out of them. Harry realised Eggsy was probably looking right through him.

Harry also realised that he had lied earlier. He was still confused. It had been the lepidopterist speaking when he had said he had never been in love. He had been talking about his death, memories intact, so maybe it had been a protective measure to spare his feelings but in any case, it had not been the truth.

The truth was, that he was in love. He was in love with the man that was sitting in front of him, dying. And Harry was doing nothing to help him. He felt paralysed, he could not move.

“Breathe,” he whispered and saw Eggsy’s eyes move to his mouth, as if mentally tracing the word.

“Yeah, Harry,” Eggsy replied. Harry wanted to reach out. He had nothing to keep secret any more, he wanted to hug, to hold, to kiss, but the man he had feelings for was dying.

The man he was in love with was dying.

“We saved the world,” Eggsy said. The words came slow, quiet. It broke Harry’s heart to lose him as well to be left standing completely alone in a world where he was not sure of anything himself.

“We did, Eggsy.” His voice was choked, tears were forming in his eyes.

A weak smile formed on Eggsy’s lips.

“Hey!”

Harry jerked back.

“I know I said you’d get two tickets, love but if you don’t act fast you’re only gonna need one.”

It was a sight to behold, Harry thought to himself. Elton looked utterly ridiculous in the costume, but Harry had the utmost respect for him. It was beyond him how he had brought down three guards and half a dog looking like this.

But Elton had a point and finally Harry could move again; the butterflies retreated from the edges of his vision. He nearly lost balance.

Harry’s head whipped around to look at Eggsy.

“Eggsy, I swear to god, I’m gonna get you out of here alive. I can’t lose you too. Hold on, please. For me.”

With a weak nod, Eggsy closed his eyes, but Harry kept monitoring his heartbeat with his glasses.

“There’s a jet out back. The cowboy came here with it.” Elton turned on the heel and was out the door. Harry scrambled to pick up Eggsy and ran after him. He was stumbling, he noticed that he was out of shape. A lot of time had passed since he had last trained and while his body knew the movements, his muscles could not support him like he expected.

When they reached the jet, Harry set Eggsy down at the side of it. There was definitely not enough room in it for all of them to get out of there, but Elton was coming around the back of the jet with a med kit.

Hastily Harry stripped away the suit jacket and shirt to expose the wound and started applying a bandage. He sealed the whole thing with a piece of Statesman med-tech labelled “for gunshots” in a scrawled handwriting.

He leaned back against the jet, leaning Eggsy’s head against his chest and promptly Ginger Ale was starting to talk to him through the glasses.

“We already have a plane on the way. Can you hold out an hour?”

Harry looked at Eggsy, seeing the spikes of his heartbeat going steadily.

“I hope so.”

It had either been infinite bad luck on Eggsy’s part or skill greater than any he had ever witnessed before on Whiskey’s. The lasso had cut through the fabric of the suit at Eggsy’s chest, opening a tiny vulnerable space if Eggsy was moving in a certain way, the firing time being the fragment of a second. But Whiskey had done it, by luck or by skill, they would never determine. Harry breathed out and looked back down to Eggsy. His heartbeat was still steady.

On his other side, Harry detected movement, less by seeing it and more by feeling a gentle gust of air against his hand, hearing the rustle of feathers.

“You really got it bad, don’t you?” Elton said. Harry had not known what to expect of the man, but he was not surprised by him anymore at this point.

“Yes. It was… He was my candidate. A trainee. I couldn’t do anything.”

Elton looked at him sympathetically.

“Ah shit.”

A pause. A long pause. Harry used it to check for Eggsy’s pulse once more.

“You’re a good man. I hope it works out. All I can say is don’t hold your feelings back.”

Harry huffed out a short laugh, not at the words but more at the situation. Here he was, days after regaining his memories, butterflies still vividly on and in his mind. He was sitting on the dusty ground at the HQ of a southeast Asian drug cartel he had just taken down. And next to him was Elton John giving him advice about his love life. In one sentence; it was absurd.

“I won’t. I can’t anymore. He deserves to know how I treasure him. He deserves to have the best.” He paused, closed his eye and leaned his head onto the side of the jet.

“I’m not the best. He deserves the best but I’m not it. I’m broken, inside and out. I’m old.” Eggsy would not want him. He was going to go back to his girl now. Maybe Harry would be the best man at their wedding. Maybe not even that.

“Stop beating yourself up over something that’s not even here yet.” Elton interrupted his thoughts. “You’ve gotta let him decide. You deserve the best too, don’t forget it.”

Harry smiled weakly. He saw no alternative; it was the thing to do in the situation, somehow he just knew it.

Their way out eventually arrived and Eggsy was delivered into the Statesman sick-bay as a top priority. People were talking to Harry, telling him to “take it easy”, telling him to “relax”, telling him to “get some rest”. But he could not. He stayed at Eggsy’s side, the dusty suit feeling foreign on his body in this atmosphere. He was used to wearing sweatpants in this environment.

Reassured of Eggsy’s stable condition and driven by growing discomfort, he could finally be convinced to take a shower and a nap.

He eventually returned, familiar track suit enveloping him in comforting warmth, the eye-patch back in place. When he sat down in the chair at Eggsy’s side and took his hand, the younger man stirred, tilted his head to one side and cracked an eye open.

“Harry?” He could not help the smile that spread on his face at this greeting.

“My dear.”

“You really got us out of there,” Eggsy mumbled. Harry wanted to explain how it had been Elton who had saved his life and eventually gotten them out of there, but the look of adoration on Eggsy’s face shut down any coherent thoughts so Harry just breathed out a “Yes.”

Three days later Eggsy was on his feet again. The excitement about the drugs and the delivery of the antidotes was still big in the media but at Statesman HQ the two of them were in a more solemn mood. They had lost everybody. Everything. Statesman was taking them in, sharing resources, offering help in restarting Kingsman, but the people they both cared for, all the other agents were gone. And there was another thing.

“I need to get something off my chest, Eggsy.”

The younger man nodded and looked at him attentively. Harry considered pulling back, but Elton was chanting _Don’t hold your feelings back!_ in the back of his head.

“I need you to know, even if it… even if it doesn’t matter. I lied.” Maybe this was not the best approach, but it was going to be quick, at least.

“About what?” Eggsy sounded worried.

“About what I said on the plane. Two things actually.” He paused, hesitantly. This was it. His eye shifted to look at the floor.

“I did think of something before I was shot.” He swallowed, felt Eggsy shift his weight next to him.

“And also, I have been in love. When I was shot the last thing I thought about was that fight we had. I didn’t want to leave you like that. I thought about apologising and about telling you how I really feel.”

Harry looked up again. Eggsy’s eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted.

“And what was that?” Eggsy asked, his voice almost inaudibly quiet. The man was not stupid. He already knew what Harry was saying, so it would make no difference if he continued or not.

Harry opened his mouth and said the most difficult words he had ever formed.

“It was that I’m in love with you.” The weak smile on his lips threw him back to when Elton had been there. He would be proud of Harry. But then he forgot all thoughts of Elton when Eggsy moved beside him.

The younger man reached out for Harry’s hand, took it gently into his own and looked up at Harry.

“I feel the same, Harry.” A pause. “I lied too.” That was not what Harry had expected.

“I told you ‘bout the girl. We had a row. Broke I off. She was great, Harry, she was. But that was not what broke me. I was already broken before then. I broke the moment I saw you getting shot.”

It was Harry’s turn to reach out now.

“I am so sorry, my dear,” he said, tracing a finger along Eggsy’s sharp jaw.

“It’s alright, you’re back now,” Eggsy replied.

Harry’s finger came to a halt beneath Eggsy’s chin, tilting it upwards. As he leaned in, he could see Eggsy’s eyes fall shut, before his own did the same.

Their lips met, and butterflies exploded before Harry’s inner eye. He brought his other hand up from where Eggsy’s had held it, to place it on his neck, caressing the fine hairs at the back of his head as he deepened the kiss.

In return, Harry felt Eggsy’s hands in his hair, tracing the band of his eye-patch gently, before threading his fingers through the longer strands of Harry’s hair.

They broke apart in unison and immediately Harry melted at the sight of Eggsy’s expression of utter adoration. Harry would not have thought it possible that this look would one day be directed at him, but now that it was, he saw it as an honour, as something to value and something to hold dear. He saw it as a goal to achieve again and again, a goal to uphold. He made a promise to himself and to Eggsy in that moment, that no matter what, it would be his top priority to make sure that this look if love and happiness graced Eggsy’s face as often as physically possible.

Harry was not sure, he rarely was about anything these days, but he was most probably wearing the exact same expression.

Butterflies were dancing in a distant corner of his mind, an everlasting reminder that his life would never be the same, but the emotions in the green eyes before him, assured him that it was for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Feel free to leave me kudos/comments :)


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